"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

In New Billboard, Romney Campaign Showcases Small Business That Directly Benefited From Obamacare

The Romney campaign is up with a new billboard
touting another small business owner upset with President Obama’s
out-of-context remark that businesses don’t succeed on their own but
rather with help from federal government programs.

But like so many
of the small businesses that the Romney campaign has trotted out in
recent weeks, Tanya L. Burns & Associates, an insurance brokerage
firm in Florida, is yet another beneficiary of federal spending. And not
just any spending: Burns’ firm has helped clients reduce their health
insurance premiums thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which Mitt Romney
has pledged to repeal.

In a 2011 article
in the Orlando Business Journal, Burns appears dumbfounded — and
pleasantly surprised — at the lower premiums some of her clients
received when they renewed their insurance contracts:

Tanya Burns, a local insurance broker and the owner of
Tanya L. Burns & Associates Inc., said when she got the renewal for
First Baptist Church and another Osceola County church, both with a 1.5 percent decrease from Aetna, she thought something was wrong with her eyes. Then, in November, she had another company renew at a 5 percent decrease. “I
called the girls in the office and told them we’re not going to call
Aetna and ask any questions, but we’re going to frame this and put it up
in our lobby.”

Since the passage of Obamacare in March 2010, millions
of individual and business policy holders are now eligible to receive
rebate checks from their insurance providers thanks to provisions that
require 85 percent of premiums collected go towards medical claims. If
that threshold is not reached, customers receive automatic rebates.
Florida in particular had an exceptionally high number of customers scheduled to receive a cumulative $149 million in rebate checks this year.

On their website, Tanya L. Burns & Associates has an entire “Health Reform Resource Center” set up, offering information on the key benefits of Obamacare and a Frequently Asked Questions page.

During the Romney campaign’s recent “Built By Us” initiative, more than a dozen
of the small businesses that the campaign sought to highlight have been
found to contract with government agencies or receive taxpayer-funded
small business grants and loans.